This blog features my weekly column called "What's up in the sky". It is published every Saturday in the Ellensburg newspaper, Daily Record (http://www.kvnews.com/). While my postings will be most accurate for Central Washington, readers throughout the northern USA may find something of use.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Saturday: Tonight’s
late rising moon is in the last quarter phase. Don’t wait up for it if you are
tired because it doesn’t rise until 1 a.m. However, if you chose to wait, look
straight up at midnight. The head of Draco the dragon will be looking straight
down on you. The brightest star in the head is called Eltanin. If you chose to
wait a VERY long time, Eltanin will be the brightest star in the night sky.
Currently 154 light years away, it is moving towards Earth and will be only 28
light years away in about 1.3 million years, claiming the title as brightest
star.

Sunday: The
constellation Cepheus the king is about four fists held upright and at arm’s
length above the northeast horizon at 11 pm. Cassiopeia the queen is about one
and a half below her husband Cepheus. Cassiopeia looks like the letter “W” and Cepheus looks like a
house on its side with the roof peak pointing towards the west. Cassiopeia and
Cepheus revolve around the North Star every night like a happy couple going
through life together.

Monday: Saturn
is three fists above the south-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.

Tuesday: Mars
is a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m.

Wednesday:
Last week, I wrote about Mizar. This week, I need to warn you not to confuse
Mizar with its rhyming brother Izar in the constellation Bootes. Izar is also a
binary star with about the same apparent brightness. And both were featured in
different episodes of Star Trek. Izar was featured in the Star Trek episode
“Whom Gods Destroy” from the original series. It is the base of Fleet Captain
Garth, a former big shot in the federation and one of Kirk’s heroes before he
went insane. Garth kidnaps Kirk and Spock before eventually being out smarted.
Mizar doesn’t play as big a role in its episode. It is the star of the home
world of one of the alien species in The Next Generation episode “Allegiance”.
Izar is one fist above the bright star Arcturus and seven fists above the south
horizon at 10 p.m. Mizar is seven fists above the northwest horizon at this
time.

Thursday: Tonight,
while you are looking at an explosion of fireworks, the NASA spacecraft Kepler
may be looking at an “explosion” of exoplanets. So far, Kepler has found 132
planets whose presence has been confirmed by other means and evidence of 3,216
planet candidates. Something is called a planet candidate when the light from a
star being observed by Kepler dims in a systematic way. Astronomers still need
to compare the pattern of dimming with the potential pattern of star wobble
caused by being tugged on by one or more planets before they can say for
certain that they have actually found planets orbiting these stars. But if even
half of these stars show the characteristic wobble, it will more than double
the number of planets known to orbit other stars, also known as exoplanets. And
this is only the beginning. The Kepler spacecraft is monitoring the brightness
of over 156,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus the swan and Lyra the lyre.
This region is midway between the bright stars Deneb and Vega. It is about the
size of your hand held at arm’s length and is about six fists held upright and
at arm’s length above due east at 11 p.m. For more information about the Kepler
mission, go to http://kepler.nasa.gov/.

Friday: Hot
enough for you? Don’t blame the Earth-Sun distance. Surprisingly, the overall
temperature of the Earth is slightly higher in July, when the Earth is farthest
from the Sun, than in January, when it is closest. That’s because in July, the
Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun. (This is the real cause of the
seasons.) The Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern Hemisphere.
Thus, in July, the large amount of Northern Hemisphere land heats up the entire
Earth about two degrees Celsius warmer than in January. In January, the watery
Southern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun. But, water does not heat up as
fast as land so the Earth is a few degrees cooler. The distance between the
Earth and Sun is its greatest today, 152.1 million kilometers. This is called
aphelion from the Greek prefix “apo” meaning “apart” and Helios, the Greek god
of the Sun.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Saturday: It’s
a plane. It’s a bird. No, it’s Supermoon! The biggest and brightest full moon
this year, 14% bigger and 30% brighter! This will lead to very high tides! And
an overuse of exclamation points! The Moon is full late tonight night meaning
the Earth, Moon, and Sun are in line with each other. That means the Moon and
Sun are both stretching the Earth along the same axis causing the ocean water
in line with the Sun and Moon to be pulled upward. In addition, the moon is at
perigee Saturday night. Peri- means close and –gee refers to the Earth so this
is the day of the month when the moon is closest to the Earth. Tonight is the
closest the full moon gets all year, which accentuates the upward pull on the
water and makes the tides really high. For more information about Supermoon!,
go to http://goo.gl/6tGGC.

Sunday: Don’t
wait until the 4th of July to go to those wimpy firecracker shows.
Find the hypergiant star Rho Cassiopeiae. Astronomers think that Rho
Cassiopeiae will likely go supernova (explode) in the near future. Of course,
for stars, near future might mean today. It might mean 20,000 years from now.
Rho Cassiopeiae is in the constellation Cassiopeia the queen. At 11:00 tonight,
Cassiopeia looks like the letter “W” about three fists held upright and at
arm’s length above the northeast horizon. Rho Cassiopeiae is about a finger’s
width to the right of the rightmost star in the “W”. Once you find it you’ll be
thinking, “Big deal, I can hardly see it.” Although it is barely visible to the
naked eye, it is actually very bright. It is the 20th most luminous
star in the sky, a whopping 550,000 times more luminous than the Sun.

Monday: Today
is Saint John’s Day, an ancient festival to celebrate midsummer. In some
cultures, the solstice marked the middle of summer, not the beginning.

Tuesday: “If
you don’t maneuver more carefully, we are going to crash.” How often do you
hear that while driving? Well, the Milky Way Galaxy is going to hear that a lot
over the next four billion years. After carefully analyzing the motion of the
Andromeda Galaxy, astronomers have determined that the Andromeda and the Milky
Way are on a collision course. To locate the Andromeda Galaxy before it ends
up in your backyard, first find the Great Square of Pegasus. At midnight, the
left hand corner of the square is about one fist above the east-northeast
horizon. Less than two fists to the left and down a little bit is another star
the same brightness as the star at the corner of the square. From that star,
hop about a half a fist up to a star that is about one fourth as bright. Less
than another half fist in the same direction is a fuzzy oval patch of light
known as the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is impressive to see in binoculars.
It consists of about 400 billion stars and is 2.2 million light years away. Go
to http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/ to read
more about the upcoming collision.

Wednesday:
Saturn is three fists above the south-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.

Thursday: Mars
is about a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 this morning.

Friday:
Mizar is a well-known binary star in the constellation Ursa Major. You can find
it at the bend in the Big Dipper handle, nearly straight overhead at 10 p.m. tonight.
Its name is Arabic for waistband. Mizar has an optical double called Alcor,
which is less than a pinky width away and can easily be seen with the naked
eye. Optical doubles are stars that are close together in the sky but do not
orbit a common center of mass as true binary stars. Not wanting to deceive sky
gazers who call Mizar a binary star, two stars that DO orbit a common center of
mass, Mizar actually is a binary. It was the first binary star system
discovered by telescope. Mizar A and Mizar B are about 400 astronomical units
apart from each other and about 80 light years from Earth. 400 astronomical
units is about 10 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate
for the entire week.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Saturday:
“Mom, I can’t sleep. It is too light out!” A poor excuse you say? Good astronomy
skills, I say. The latest sunset of the year happens over the next two weeks.
Surprisingly, the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not both happen on
the longest day of the year, the day of the summer solstice. The earliest
sunrise occurs just before the longest day and the latest sunset occurs just
after the longest day. (The earliest sunrise happens this weekend.) This
phenomenon relates to the angle of the Sun’s path near rising and setting. In
Ellensburg, that angle is about 66 degrees near the first day of summer.
Because of the Earth’s orbit, which causes the Sun’s apparent motion, the angles
are not symmetric. The asymmetries in orbital angles leads to the asymmetry in
rise and set times. By the way, the “can’t sleep because it is too light out”
line may just be an excuse because the sunset times change by only a few
seconds each day this time of year. The sun sets between 9:01 and 9:02 p.m.
between June 20 and July 2 2012.

Sunday: Sunday:
Do you have a dad that is so great that you wish you could write his name in
galaxies? Now you can. UK astronomer Steven Bamford has developed a computer
program that finds images of galaxies that resemble different letters. Just
enter the words here http://mygalaxies.co.uk/
and the program spells it out in galaxies. Here’s the new Daily Record title
page http://mygalaxies.co.uk/jh2m7m/.

Monday:
Summer is nearly here. How do I know? Because my kids are home from school.
Also, because the Summer Triangle is fairly high in the eastern sky at 10 p.m.
Vega, the third brightest star visible from Ellensburg, is about five fists
held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon. Deneb, at the tail of
Cygnus the swan is about three and a half fists above the northeast horizon.
The third star in the triangle, Altair, in Aquila the eagle is two fists above
the east horizon.

If you
want to put somebody off, tell her or him to wait until Deneb sets. At
Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees, Deneb is a circumpolar star meaning it
never goes below the horizon.

Tuesday: The
bright star Spica is about a half a fist to the right of the moon and Saturn is
less than a fist to the upper left of the moon at 11 p.m.

Wednesday:
Mercury is about a fingers width to the left of the very bright Venus. They are
about a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. Venus will be
easy to spot but you may need binoculars to see Mercury.

Thursday: Today
is the first day of summer, the day that the Sun reaches its highest declination
(the official name for sky latitude) of 23.5 degrees above the celestial
equator. The celestial equator is the line that divides the northern sky from
the southern sky. In Ellensburg, the Sun is about seven fists held upright and
at arm’s length above the south horizon at 1:00 p.m. (noon standard time).
Contrary to popular belief, the Sun is never straight overhead in Ellensburg or
anywhere else in the 48 contiguous states. The northernmost portion of the
world where the Sun can be directly overhead is 23.5 degrees north latitude. In
ancient times, the Sun was in the constellation Cancer the crab on the first
day of summer. Hence, 23.5 degrees north latitude has the nickname "Tropic
of Cancer". Because the Earth wobbles like a spinning top, the Sun's apparent
path through the sky changes slightly over time. Now, the Sun is in the
constellation Taurus the bull on the first day of summer. However, citing the
high cost of revising all of the science books, geographers are not changing
the name of 23.5 degrees north latitude to "Tropic of Taurus". The
first day of summer is often called the summer solstice. However, astronomers
refer to the summer solstice as the point in the sky in which the Sun is at its
highest point above the celestial equator. Thus, summer starts when the Sun is
at the summer solstice point. This year, that happens at 10:04 p.m. So I guess
tomorrow is the first full day of summer.

Friday: Mars
is just barely starting to creep into the pre-dawn sky. It is less than a half
a fist above the northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Have you
bought your favorite CWU graduate a graduation gift yet? Why not get her or him
a star? I don’t mean from one of those organizations that offers to “register
the name of YOUR star with the U.S. Patent Office”. No company owns the right
to name stars after people. Besides, the stars those companies “name” are so
dim you can’t find them. In this column, I’ll pick a constellation and
representative star for each of the four colleges at CWU. Then, I’ll briefly
tell the story of the constellation and relate that story to the aspect of
public service CWU graduates from that college are uniquely qualified to engage
in based on my version of sky interpretation. A couple can have “their” song so
your favorite CWU graduate can have her or his star.

Saturday:
Just as gyms and stadiums have been filled with smart people for many evenings
for the past few weeks, the sky is filled with planets. Since Venus and Mercury
set early, look for them first. The very bright Venus is about a half a fist held
upright and at arm’s length above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30. Much
dimmer Mercury is a half a fist to the upper left of it. If you need to go off
and make small talk with someone, you have some time to spare now. At 10 p.m.,
Saturn is three fists above due south. If you’re staying at the party late, don’t
worry. Saturn doesn’t set in the southwest sky until 3 a.m.

Sunday:
College of Arts and Humanities: You are the people who interpret the world in
unique ways. Then, you share those ways with others. According to Greek
mythology, Orpheus charmed everyone he met when he played the lyre or harp.
After his wife died tragically, he journeyed to the underworld to charm its
inhabitants in an effort to win his wife back to the living world. Your service
reminder: use your talent to bring joy to others. The constellation Lyra and
its bright star Vega should remind you of the power of the arts. Vega is five
fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Monday:
College of Business. You are the future movers and shakers. The future CEOs.
The future big donors to Central. Auriga represented a king of Athens who
happened to be mobility impaired. Instead of sitting around waiting for others
to transport him, he took the initiative to invent the four-wheeled chariot. He
solved a problem for a special need. Your service reminder: address the
problems of those in the most need. To remind you of that, look to the
constellation Auriga. Its bright star Capella is about one fist above the north
horizon at 11 p.m.

Tuesday: Tomorrow
morning, Mercury will be as far away from the Sun in the sky as it will get
this orbital cycle. This "farthest away" point is known as the
planet's greatest elongation. Since Mercury is in evening sky, it is east of
the Sun. Thus, this evening’s elongation is known as the greatest eastern
elongation. (If you care to remember this in general, remember both eastern and
evening start with the letter "e".) Tonight and tomorrow will be the
best nights to observe Mercury for the next few months. Mercury is one fist
held upright and at arm’s length above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m.
Over the next two weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late
July, it will be visible in the morning sky.

Wednesday:
College of Education and Professional Studies. You are the teachers. The
craftspeople. The facilitators of learning in a diverse world. Bootes, the
herdsman, was such a person. Bootes’ job was to guide the northern
constellations to the feeding place and the watering hole. He and his dogs were
especially in charge of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the greater and lesser
bears. Your service reminder: guide others to a better place in life. Look to
the constellation Bootes and its bright star Arcturus to remind you of this.
Arcturus is six fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Thursday:
College of the Sciences. You are the people who will systematically study how
the world works. Agriculture is an important scientific application. Each year,
farmers must use the findings of science to be successful. Who better to
represent the College of the Sciences than Virgo, the goddess of the harvest?
Virgo looms large in the sky holding an ear of wheat in her hand. Your service
reminder: study the practical aspects of the scientific world. The ear of
wheat, and your service reminder, is represented by the bright star Spica.
Spica is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Friday: Altair,
in the constellation Aquila the eagle, is two fists above the east horizon at
11 p.m.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week.